No. 40.

The characteristic Helmet of this time is the conical nasal helmet, of which we have seen examples in the close of the former period. The face-guard, or nasal, was a revival from classic days. Good examples, of Greek art, appear among the figures on the tympana of the temple of Minerva at Ægina; careful casts of which have been placed in the collection at Sydenham. The nasal helmet is found, not alone in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but occasionally in every century down to the seventeenth. In the Bayeux tapestry it is almost universal, the nasal being much broader than that of Greek times, the crown conical, and not much raised above the head. In some cases tasselled cords appear at the back of the head-piece (see Plate xi. of the tapestry), which may have served to fasten it to the coif below; but the chief fastening of the casque was by means of laces meeting under the chin. See the seal of William the Conqueror (woodcut [25]), and the excellent example in the Kerrich Collections, from a sculpture at Modena (Add. MSS., 6728, fol. 17). The round and flat-topped helmets of the twelfth century have also the nasal. Of the first an instance occurs in the seal of Patrick Dunbar, earl of March, engraved in Laing's "Scottish Seals." The second appears in the figures of the Harleian Roll, Y. 6, (woodcut [32]). In seals, it is often very difficult to tell whether a nasal has existed or not, from the melting of the wax, and from this defence following so closely the line of the face. In some rare instances, a sort of peak is used instead of the nasal, not descending below the eyebrows. See Plate 65 of Hefner's "Costumes;" and compare the figure on folio 9 of Cotton. MS., Tiber., C. vi., an example of Anglo-Saxon times. To the nasal helmet, cheek-pieces and a neck-defence were occasionally added. These pieces are also found on Greek examples, and appear, too, in modern Eastern armour; as may be seen in the helmet of Tippoo Saib, preserved in the India House Museum. The casque with neck-piece appears in the Bayeux tapestry (see Plate ix.), and on the seal of Stephen de Curzun, (Cotton Charter, V. 49). The nasal helmet with neck-guard and cheek-defences occurs among the chess-pieces found in the Isle of Lewis, and now in the British Museum.

No. 41.

The helmets not having nasals are chiefly conical, round and flat-topped. The old combed form of Anglo-Saxon times occurs in Harl. MS. 603, fol. 13vo., a book of the close of the eleventh century. The Phrygian form appears in Harl. MS. 2800, fol. 21 of vol. ii., a work of the close of the twelfth century. The conical casque is found in the annexed seal of Conan, duke of Britanny, circa 1165: from Harl. Chart., 48, G. 40. The round-topped helmet is seen on the first seal of Richard I., (woodcut [1], fig. 1,) and in many examples in Cotton MS., Titus, D. xvi. The cylindrical or flat-topped helmet appears to have come into fashion towards the close of the twelfth century. In its earliest form it resembled that on the second seal of Richard I., (woodcut [1], fig. 2,) and the similar examples figured in Stothard's Monuments, Plate xxiv., and Surtees' Durham, vol. i. p. 24, and vol. ii. p. 139. In all these examples the casque is of one piece, having two horizontal clefts for vision, and being strengthened by bands crossing each other over the face and on the top. The Durham examples are without ornament, but the helmet of Richard has a fan-crest, ensigned in its lower portion with a lion. The seal of Baldwin, earl of Flanders, circa 1191, badly engraved by Vredius, offers another early example of the flat-topped knightly helm. The cylindrical casque common in the next century differs from this in having a grated ventail; by which a better supply of air could always be obtained by the warrior, and a still more abundant provision occasionally acquired by opening the ventaglia, which to this end was constructed with hinges at the side. Some varieties of the casque worn during the twelfth century may be seen in the Archæologia, vol. xxiv., copied by Sir Frederic Madden from the Isle of Lewis chess-pieces in the British Museum. Among these will be remarked the "Iron Hat," with its round crown and flat rim, of which we have already traced the descent from the petasus of classic times[203]. Sometimes the helmets are surmounted with a kind of knop or button; as in the picture given by Silvestre from a Latin Horace in the Paris Library[204]; in the seal of William the Conqueror, in the Bayeux tapestry, and in the Spanish manuscript of the year 1109 in the British Museum, (Add. MS. 11,695, fol. 194).

The fan-crest represented in the seal of Richard I. is a very early instance of a fashion which came into more favour towards the close of the thirteenth century. Fan-crests, as we have seen, were in use among the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, and again among the Anglo-Saxons. But they do not appear during the rule of the Norman kings in England till the end of the thirteenth century; except in this single instance of Richard's seal. It may perhaps be doubted if the monarch ever wore such a decoration: an embellishment, perhaps, added by the seal-engraver from some monument of classic times. This seems the more likely from the fact that, in classic examples, the union of a fan-crest with a casque adorned on its sides with an animal form, is of constant occurrence. Among a thousand examples that might be cited, we may quote, as a readily accessible authority, Montfaucon's Antiquité Expliquée, vol. i., Plate xlii. At a later period of the middle-ages, this combination is again found: the helmet on the seal of Reinald, Graf von Geldern in 1343, has a striking resemblance to that of Richard: a lion is figured on the part surmounting the crown of the head, and over that again is placed the fan-crest. A copy of this monument may be seen in the useful series of "Ancient Seals" in the collection at Sydenham. Early examples of the casque ornamented with a heraldic device on its surface are offered by the enamelled tablet at Le Mans, attributed to Geoffry of Anjou, (Stothard, Plate ii.,) and the effigy of "Johan le Botiler," circa 1300, engraved in our woodcut No. [74].

The Shields of this period are chiefly the kite-shaped, the triangular, and the round. The first two are sometimes flat, and sometimes bowed; the round are flat or convex. The kite-shield is of most frequent occurrence during the earlier part of the period under examination, the triangular during the latter. As the round target was most convenient for the foot-fighter, so the kite-shield, broad in its upper part, so as to cover the body of the warrior, and narrow where the leg only required to be defended, and where the position of the knight on his horse necessitated a tapering form, seems to have been most in favour with the horseman. The bowed kite-shield is very distinctly shewn in many cotemporary monuments: in Cotton MS., Titus, D. xvi., of the close of the eleventh century; in the curious pyx from the collection of the late T. Crofton Croker, Esq., engraved in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1833; in Harl. MS., 2895, fol. 82; in the enamelled figure attributed to Geoffry of Anjou; and in the seals of King Stephen, (woodcuts [30] and [42]). The Princess Anna Comnena, at the close of the eleventh century, tells us that the shields of the French crusading knights were of this fashion:—"For defence they bear an impenetrable shield, not of a round, but of an oblong shape; broad at the upper part and terminating in a point. The surface is not flat, but convex, so as to embrace the person of the wearer; an umbo of shining brass is in the middle; and the exterior face is of metal so highly polished by frequent rubbing as to dazzle the eyes of the beholder[205]."